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LIFE UNDER GLASS. 



CONTAINING SUGGESTIONS TOWARD 



The Formation or Artificial Climates. 



BY 



GEORGE A. SHOVE. 



" If all were free, 
Who would not, like the swallow, flit, and find 
What season suited him? — in summer heats 
Wing northward, and in winter build his home 
In sheltered valleys nearer to the sun." 







BOSTON: 
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

(Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.) 

1874. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



Boston : 

Stereotyped and Printed by Rand, Avery, & Co., 

117 Franklin Street. 



DEDICATION. 



TO THE 

COUNTLESS HOST OF WEATHER - SENSITIVE INVALIDS 

OF THE NORTH 

Efjts ILtttle Volume i% Bespectfullg ©e&katetf, 

AS A 

SUGGESTION TO THOSE WHO ARE TO ORGANIZE THE SANITARY 

SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE ; LET US HOPE, 

OF THE NEAR FUTURE. 



One of the foremost of English medical writers, 
Dr. James Johnson, emphatically says, "I declare 
my conscientious opinion, founded on long observa- 
tion and reflection, that if there was not a single 
physician, surgeon, apothecary, chemist, druggist, or 
drug, on the face of the earth, there would be less 
sickness and less mortality than now obtains." And 
Prof. Magendie is reported to have addressed his stu- 
dents at the Medical College in Paris to the following 
effect : " Gentlemen, medicine is a great humbug. 
I know it is called a science. Science indeed ! — it is 
nothing like science. Doctors are mere empirics 
when they are not charlatans. We are as ignorant as 
men can be. Who knows any thing in the world 
about medicine ? Gentlemen, you have done me the 
honor to attend my lectures; and I must tell you 
frankly, that I know nothing about medicine. True, 
we are gathering facts every day. We can produce 
typhus-fever, for example, by injecting a certain sub- 
stance into the veins of a dog ; we can alleviate dia- 
betes ; and I see distinctly, ice are fast approaching the 
day when phthisis can be cured as easily as any disease. 
But I repeat it to you, there is no such thing now as 
medical science. I grant you, people are cured ; but 
how ? Nature does a great deal ; imagination does a 
great deal ; doctors do — devilish little." 



PEEFACB. 



To the man or woman who is blessed with 
even the smallest of conservatories or green- 
houses, and whose home is on the shady 
side of the fortieth parallel of latitude, the 
motive of the following little work will need 
no apology. It is such a supreme satisfac- 
tion to have a few hundred cubic feet of 
space fenced in with crystal from the raging, 
stinging winds of a Northern winter, — a shel- 
tered nook where one can easily fancy it the 
middle of May, while out of doors the frozen 
blood of St. Januarius has not yet begun to 
liquefy under the touch of the returning 
sun, — that a mind of ordinary intelligence 



6 PREFACE. 

which enjoys such a privilege will acknowl- 
edge the desirability and the practicability 
of fencing off very much larger portions of 
space with transparent material, so that 
multitudes may be enabled to enjoy the 
benefit and the pleasure of a mild and equa- 
ble winter temperature. 

An article published in " The Atlantic 
Monthly" for March, 1873, entitled "Life 
Under Glass," attracted considerable atten- 
tion throughout the Northern States from 
people who are not afraid of ideas merely 
because they are new. It was suggested to 
the author from influential quarters to ex- 
tend the essay, and have it published in a 
book form. The author is conscious, that, 
even in its enlarged form, the essay is still an 
inadequate presentation of a subject so im- 
portant (as he believes it to be) to the well- 
being of the Northern peoples. 



LIFE UNDER GLASS. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



It is one of the tritest of axioms, that cus- 
tom, or repetition, will often reconcile us to 
the most afflicting events. 

Let a desolating war break out in any 
country after a long interval of peace, and 
the first insignificant skirmish excites the 
public mind to the most intense degree, 
although the loss of life may be slight ; but, 
let the war continue long enough, and the 
most sanguinary battles at length cease to 
excite in the contending peoples, except in 

7 



8 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

individual cases, that thrill of horror which 
attended the breaking-out of the carnage. 

As with wars and battles, so with diseases. 
There are some destructive maladies which 
cause an annual mortality far greater than 
the loss of life in any battle of modern 
times, yet which have become so common, so 
closely inwoven into the fibre of the race, 
as to seem as much a part of the fixed order 
of things as are the taxes, and quite as little 
to be avoided. 

At the head of the list of such diseases 
stands consumption, unrivalled by any other 
malady of the North in the number and 
character of its victims. This scourge of 
the most enlightened of the earth's peoples, 
those who boast of their descent from the 
energetic and the progressive Aryan race, 
loves a shining mark. Its too often fatal 
shafts seem to seek out the bright and beau- 
tiful of earth's children. It neglects the 



INTRODUCTORY. 9 

very young and the very old, but gathers its 
annual harvest of tens of thousands out of 
those in the early or later prime of manhood 
and womanhood. 

Fifteen thousand human beings are annu- 
ally killed by tigers in India. The North- 
American shudders as he reads a statement 
indicative of so deplorable a state of affairs, 
and thanks his stars that his lines are cast 
in pleasanter places. A little reflection 
would show him that there is an enemy 
among us more destructive of valuable life 
than all the tigers of India, plus its venom- 
ous serpents. 

Of all 'the deaths that occur in most 
Northern countries, consumption is responsi- 
ble for nearly or quite one-fifth. Let us sup- 
pose that the woods and swamps of our 
land were jungles infested by royal Bengal 
tigers, which caused a yearly destruction 
of life equal to one-fifth of all the deaths. 



10 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

How long would such a state of things be 
permitted to continue? The tigers we are 
happily free from ; but their place is more 
than supplied by an insidious and fatal 
disease, which, more discriminating than the 
scourge of the Indian jungles, selects its 
prey from the very flower of society. 

The indifference with which this great loss 
of valuable lives is regarded in the commu- 
nities in which it occurs is not flattering to 
the intelligence of the age. If some fatal 
disorder like the pleuropneumonia threatens 
the domestic animals, there is directly an 
intense excitement. Eemedies of various 
kinds are experimented with ; the whole 
matter is thoroughly discussed in news- 
papers, in farmers' clubs, and in public meet- 
ings. Legislatures are even convened to 
enact repressive laws, and stamp out the 
disease before it is too late. 

In the case, however, of a merely human 



INTRODUCTORY. 11 

malady like consumption, which sweeps off 
men and women in lien of cows and oxen 
haying a pecuniary value, society is content 
to fold its hands after the fatalistic manner 
of the Moslem, while the mortality proceeds 
unchecked, as an inscrutable and irremedi- 
able dispensation of Providence. 

" The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
But in ourselves." 

Yet society is roused from its apathy if the 
cholera in its infrequent visits, or the yellow 
fever, or the small-pox, claims a few victims. 
These are unmistakably contagious diseases ; 
and selfishness whispers to each individual 
that it may be his turn next. Directly there 
is a panic : all the means that sanitary 
science can suggest are energetically used by 
boards of health having unlimited powers 
to prevent the spread of the malady. All 
of this is very natural and proper. If it 



12 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

were possible, likewise, to get up a whole- 
sojne panic in regard to consumption, which 
is a greater evil than all the other mala- 
dies mentioned combined, something might 
also be done to check its ravages. 

Much has been written as to the causes of 
pulmonary consumption, and different theo- 
ries prevail as to its nature and origin. Its 
proximate causes are undoubtedly manifold, 
the chief of which are, hereditary tendency 
or a scrofulous taint of the blood, a weaken- 
ing of the system, an unwholesome diet, &c. 
But, whatever may be the proximate or the 
exceptional causes, it is evident that an un- 
genial and variable climate must bear the 
chief onus of responsibility for its preva- 
lence.* A climate liable to sudden and 

* Possibly there are some who will not admit that con- 
sumption has its origin chiefly in atmospheric causes. If 
that is not the case, why is it that there are certain climates 
where* the disease seldom or never originates? Such is the 



INTRODUCTORY. 13 

great falls of temperature at all seasons, or 
which is subject to long spells of raw, humid 
weather, is shown by statistics to be a con- 
genial habitat of pulmonary consumption. 
On the other hand, climates more uniform in 
character, and having a dry atmosphere, are 
comparatively exempt from lung disease.* 

case in Minnesota, which is largely peopled from New 
England, the emigrants including many consumptive 
families; yet the children grow up without the disease 
developing itself, though retaining the same habits, and 
modes of life, as before their emigration. As a remedy 
for the disease when developed, the climate of Minnesota 
has been greatly overestimated. It is stated by good 
authority, that not more than rive per cent of those in the 
earlier stages of this disease are permanently benefited by 
removal to Minnesota. The land is high, and the air con- 
sequently dry and pure ; but the terrible severity of the 
winters is a great drawback. 

* To trace the connection between the languages of 
different peoples and the climates they lived in would 
repay the investigations of even a Max Muller. It is un- 
doubtedly possible to judge very nearly of the climate 
of any country from a mere vocabulary of the words in 



14 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

From the peculiarities of climate of New 
England and some other portions of the 
Northern States, one would naturally ex- 
pect to find consumption a preyalent disease 
in these regions ; and such is the fact. 

daily use by the inhabitants. Thus the climate of Eng- 
land is characterized by a very large proportion of dark, 
misty, rainy, and cloudy days. Somebody has compared 
it to looking up a chimney when the day is fair, and to 
looking down the chimney when it is unpleasant. The 
words in the English language descriptive of foul weather 
far outnumber those used to describe fair weather. Eor 
example, take the adjectives commencing with the letter 
D, which are in common use by the English people when 
talking of the weather. A spell of foul weather might be 
described as being dark, damp, drizzly, dreary, dismal, 
dirty, dull, dripping, doleful, drowsy, dumpish, dubious, 
distressing, deused, dreadful, detestable, dangerous ; and, 
if the colloquist were addicted to profanity, several more 
emphatic adjectives beginning with D might be used. To 
describe a fine day, using only words commencing with 
the letter named, the choice would be restricted to three or 
four dry, — delightful, delicious, and perhaps delectable, 
though the latter word is not in general use. 



INTRODUCTORY. 15 

Whatever else we may have to be proud of, 
our climate is not a subject for unmixed ad- 
miration. It is well known to be a climate 
of extremes, — what the naturalist Buffon 
called an excessive climate, — extremes not 
only of heat and cold, but of wetness and 
dryness. The great range of the thermome- 
ter, in some years more than a hundred and 
twenty degrees of Fahrenheit's scale, is 
rivalled by the fluctuations of the hygrome- 
ter. Pluvial floods that would not discredit 
the rainy season of the tropics — times 
when it seems easy to believe in the theory 
of Leibnitz, that the universe is in flux — 
are followed or preceded by drouths worthy 
of the red sands of the Colorado desert,- — 
drouths sharp and long enough to cause all 
organized life, animate and inanimate, to 
thirst for a little of that moisture, which, in 
its excess, was so great a discomfort to man 
and beast. It was such a drouth that pre- 



16 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

pared the way for the terrible dies tree of the 
burning of Chicago and the Michigan lum- 
ber region. 

At all seasons the temperature of these 
regions is liable to sudden and great alterna- 
tions from warmth to cold, and the reverse. 
For instance, on the 29th of January, 1873, 
the temperature at the writer's residence, in 
Southern Massachusetts, fell fifty degrees in 
seven hours, or from thirty degrees above 
zero to twenty below that point. The next 
day the mercury rose seventy degrees in five 
hours. Such severe changes are destructive 
to vegetable as well as to animal organiza- 
tions. In the winter of 1871-72 the com- 
bined cold and drouth were so intense as to 
destroy hardy evergreens over a large extent 
of the country. The following summer was 
intensely hot. More than three hundred 
fatal cases of thermic fever, or sunstroke, 
were reported in New- York City alone. 



INTRODUCTORY. 17 

The mortality in that city, during the ter- 
ribly hot week ending with July 6, was 
three times as great as the average.* 

* A valuable and interesting feature of the ninth- 
census reports are the "charts of mortality" in the 
second volume. These charts show in distinct colors the 
relative mortality from various maladies in different 
sections of the country. The first shows the mortality 
from consumption. The highest average of deaths from 
this disease, over two thousand in ten thousand, is indi- 
cated by dark blue. This color covers the greater part of 
the New-England States, and also appears in North- 
western New York, in Eastern New Jersey, around the 
head waters of the Ohio River, in South-eastern Indiana, 
and Northern Kentucky. The next highest average, 
fourteen hundred to two thousand deaths in ten thousand, 
is shown by a lighter shade of color. This covers a large 
part of Michigan, Southern Wisconsin, and parts of Il- 
linois, Iowa, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The 
greater portion of the Middle States are covered by it, 
excepting Pennsylvania. The only spots in the country 
east of the Bocky Mountains with a perfectly white 
record, with less than five hundred and fifty deaths in ten 
thousand, are the northern parts of Minnesota, Wiscon- 
sin, and Michigan, and small areas in Virginia, North 
Carolina, Georgia, and Southern Florida. 



18 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

It would be easy to fill a large volume 
with evidence showing the excessive and 
variable character of our climate ; but the 
labor would be superfluous. Every resident 
of the regions under consideration is 
thoroughly sensible of the fact from, un- 
pleasant, personal experience. It is not 
strange, that, in a climate with such peculi- 
arities, phthisis pulmonalis is responsible for 
one death in every five. A locality in which 
a harsh, changeable winter and spring are 
followed by a summer of debilitating heat 
is the most unfavorable that could be devised 
for those afflicted with phthisis, or who have 
a tendency towards it through hereditary 
descent. Hence many, who have the means 
and can bear the journey, take flight in the 
autumn with the birds of passage to more 
friendly climes, — to Florida, to Georgia, and 
the Carolinas, to the Bahamas, and even to 
Southern California. It has been denied by 



INTRODUCTORY. 19 

some physicians of eminence — among them 
the noted Dr. Ramadge of London — that a 
winter residence at the South is of any 
benefit to people having tuberculous diseases 
of the lungs. There is evidence, however, 
that many cares of the earlier stages of the 
malady have occurred owing to removal to a 
milder latitude. The number of such cures 
would, no doubt, be much larger than it is 
if any southern climate could be found 
where the conditions were absolutely per- 
fect for effecting a cure. Italy, Southern 
France, and Spain, were formerly popular 
winter resorts for those afflicted with this 
disease ; but experience has long since shown 
that the shores and islands of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea are far from being favorable 
localities for the cure or amelioration of this 
disease. The average winter temperature is 
mild compared with that of more northern 
lands ; but sudden changes frequently occur. 



20 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

Cold, cutting winds, like the mistral of 
Southern France and the tramontana of the 
west coast of Italy, alternate with the hot 
and debilitating sirocco, "Auster's sultry 
blast." The spring months are especially 
trying to persons with weak lungs, from 
the keen, easterly winds which often prevail 
at that season. The best resort for con- 
sumptives across the ocean, excepting some 
parts of Syria, is undoubtedly the Island of 
Madeira. Yet the climate of this favored 
island is not perfection. " The spring at 
Madeira," says Sir James Clark in his work 
on the sanitive influence of climate, " as 
at every other place, is the most trying sea- 
son for the invalid, and will require, even 
there, a corresponding degree of caution on 
his part." Notwithstanding this drawback, 
he considered a residence in Madeira, during 
the cold season, to be decidedly beneficial in 
the earlier stages of lung disease. 



INTRODUCTORY. 21 

The winter climates of Florida, of South- 
ern California, and of some other places in 
the austral regions of our country, with the 
summer climate of the Minnesota watershed, 
are far superior, in a sanitive point of view, 
to the shores and islands of the Mediterra- 
nean. Florida especially, though sometimes 
subject to rough " northers," has a winter 
temperature of great mildness. That of 
San Diego, in Southern California, is said to 
be nearly or quite equal to it in this respect. 

But, whatever may be the advantages of 
these and other distant resorts for the sick, 
it is obvious that they can be made available 
to only a small portion of the large numbers 
of persons who need a mild, dry, and equable 
atmosphere as a primal condition of cure. 
Possibly five per cent of this class are able 
to bear the expense and endure the fatigues 
of the long journey required. What is to 
be done with the remaining ninety-five per 



22 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

cent ? Must they give over all hope of re- 
covery, and hasten the sad finale by yielding 
to the depressing influence of a cheerless 
gloom? At present there is only one re- 
source by which they can avoid, to some ex- 
tent, the trying changes of temperature, and 
the cold, raw spells of weather incident to 
the winters and springs of our northern 
clime ; and that is, to keep indoors as much as 
possible. The remedy, it is needless to say, 
is almost as bad as the evil sought to be 
avoided. How can invalids regain health 
who have to breathe for days and weeks at 
a time the close air of a sitting-room, 
poisoned by stove or furnace, and filled with 
the irritating dust from carpets and clothing ? 
It is only the natural sequence of cause and 
effect that the enfeebled vitality of multi- 
tudes succumbs under such unfavorable con- 
ditions. Is there no remedy for this state 
of things? Cannot an artificial climate be 



INTRODUCTORY. 23 

provided for these stricken ones, which shall 
furnish a breathing medium, dry, pure, agree- 
able in temperature, and of a nearly uniform 
degree of warmth? — in brief, a climate far 
surpassing, in its sanitive influence, any 
natural climate on the globe? The writer 
believes that this is entirely possible ; and 
he is not without the hope of imparting 
to others some portion of his own well- 
grounded faith. 

The question has often been mooted, 
whether man has the power to influence or 
change, in any degree, the general climate of 
the regions he occupies. Those conversant 
with the facts bearing upon the question can 
have but one opinion to give in the premises ; 
which is, that, within certain narrow limits, 
the climate of any country can be modified 
by human agency. The temperature of large 
districts in England has been raised appre- 
ciably by the artificial drainage of the soil, 



24 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

which was primarily cold through excessive 
wetness. After drainage, the dry, cultivated 
soil, being more easily warmed by the sun, 
absorbs heat to a great depth, and imparts it 
again to the air above by radiation. 

In the neighborhood of Salt Lake, in Utah, 
cultivation of the soil and tree-planting have 
noticeably improved the climate. Where 
there were formerly frosts in every month of 
the year, frost is now unknown during the 
growing season. The climate has also lost 
much of its former aridity. Rains are said 
to be much more frequent ; and the level of 
Salt Lake is constantly rising, threatening 
ultimate overflow of its banks. Possibly, in 
time, it will become a fresh-water lake. The 
wonderful patience and industry of the illit- 
erate Mormons have changed the region they 
occupy from a cold, arid desert into a ver- 
dant garden, where all the fruits and cereals 
of the temperate zone grow in perfection. 



INTRODUCTORY. 25 

Similar changes, though perhaps less marked, 
have attended the cultivation of the soil 
in other seemingly unpromising localities. 
Even under the proverbially rainless sky 
of Egypt, it is said, some indications of a 
moister state of affairs have followed the 
extensive planting of forest-trees under the 
orders of the Khedive. 

Such instances as these show that meteor- 
ological phenomena can be sensibly modified 
by man's agency. But they do not prove 
that it will ever be possible to effect any 
radical change in the earth-climates. No 
amount of drainage or tree-planting would 
ever give to New England the atmospheric 
temperature of the Gulf States. Such a rad- 
ical bouleversement as that, if it ever takes 
place, will be due solely to the operation of 
those occult forces, — whether cosmical or 
telluric in their nature is yet an open ques- 
tion, but, in either case, inconceivably slow, 



26 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

as the mills of the gods, — which, during the 
existence of our weather-worn planet, have 
more than once revolutionized its climates, 
and which may even now be inaugurating 
the cycle that shall, perhaps, hundreds of 
centuries hence, restore to these northern 
lands the tropic temperature and vegetation 
they possessed in the carboniferous age. 
Such a contingency as that, if it were a near 
one, would not be entirely agreeable to con- 
template ; but it is altogether too remote to 
excite any deep interest in the world of to- 
day. What the present generation of men 
is, or ought to be, interested in, is to use the 
means it undoubtedly possesses to counteract 
the ill effects of our present climate upon the 
systems of those who are unable to bear its 
severities of temperature. 

It is obvious that no efforts of man will 
ever enable him to control, in any degree, 
the vast atmospheric waves which sweep 



INTRODUCTORY, 27 

over land and sea with alternate floods of 
warmth and cold, — now soothing us into 
Elysian dreams with the soft accent, the 
spiritus lenis, of the sweet south ; now scour- 
ging and pinching us with the spiritus asper 
of the icy north. Yet these great and often 
sudden changes of temperature can be ren- 
dered innocuous to the most susceptible 
invalids by creating isolated climates of con- 
siderable extent, and of any desirable temper- 
ature and hygrometric condition of atmos- 
phere. The material which chiefly enables 
this to be done is abundant and compara- 
tively cheap, and, were it not so common, 
would excite perennial wonder and admira- 
tion. 

There is no transformation in art or nature 
more wonderful than the conversion of sub- 
stances so opaque, and so earthy in nature, 
as are sand and alkali, into such a material 
as glass, — a material having scarcely one 



28 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

property characteristic of its components; 
which almost rivals the diamond in hardness, 
brilliancy, and transparency; which can be 
blown, moulded, and cut into myriad shapes 
of use and beauty ; which enables mankind 
to have light, warm, and cheerful homes; 
which furnishes the means of exploring the 
distant abysses of the stellar spaces, and of 
revealing a new world in the dust of earth 
and air, and by the aid of which it becomes 
easily possible to grow the flowers and fruits 
of the tropics under the cold skies of the 
north. There is no other substance of man's 
invention that approaches glass in its impor- 
tance to the well-being of the race in high 
latitudes. Without its beneficent aid, large 
portions of the earth's surface that are now 
peopled by thriving and mentally-advanced 
communities would be uninhabitable except 
by semi-savages. Indispensable as it already 
is, its use will undoubtedly be greatly 



INTRODUCTORY. 29 

extended in the near future. Owing to its 
property of allowing the transmitted heat- 
rays of the sun to pass through its substance 
without material hinderance, while it prevents 
the free escape of the heat thus imprisoned 
into space, one can bottle up sunshine, as it 
were, in one's grapery or conservatory. If a 
man puts a glass roof over his garden, it is 
equivalent to a removal fifteen or twenty 
degrees nearer to the equator. 

The writer has had some experience as an 
amateur cultivator of our native grapes. 
Some years ago he had a mild attack of the 
grape-fever, induced by the glowing, descrip- 
tive catalogues of certain noted vine propaga- 
tors in the valley of the Hudson. A spot of 
mellow garden-soil was prepared by trench- 
ing and enriching ; a close board fence was 
built around the north and west sides for a 
wind-screen ; and in this dry, rich, sheltered 
spot, several hundred vines were planted, 



30 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

comprising all the varieties then in vogue. 
For two or three years the vines grew well, 
and some first premiums for the fruit were 
taken at the county fairs. But a succession 
of unfavorable seasons ensued. Heavy floods 
of cold rain in July and August, followed by 
scorching sunshine and sultry air, brought 
mildew and sun-scald in their train. Sul- 
phur, said to be a specific for the oidium^ was 
freely applied through the nozzle of an old 
bellows, but with scarcely any effect. The 
diseased leaves dropped from the vines in 
untimely showers before the end pf summer, 
leaving the unripened fruit to shrivel and 
perish. Deprived of the leaves, the wood of 
the new shoots also remained unripened, and 
the buds for the next year's growth undevel- 
oped. As a consequence, all the vines except 
a few of the hardier sorts were permanently 
enfeebled. 

The impending failure of the grape cul- 



INTRODUCTORY. 31 

ture in the open air being foreseen, it was 
decided to transfer the field of operations to 
an artificial climate. A grape-house of 
modest dimensions was built, and sixteen 
vines of the best foreign varieties were 
planted with their roots in the border out- 
side. No more pains were taken with the 
border than had been bestowed on the soil 
in which the out-door vines had been 
planted. The house-vines were not set 
until June, and not much growth was 
expected of the feeble-looking little things 
for that season. They soon, however, sent 
up shoots which grew with wonderful rapid- 
ity and vim in the genial air of the grapery. 
They seemed to be almost conscious of their 
good fortune in being placed in such favora- 
ble conditions for growth, sheltered from 
rough winds, from cold, and from storms. It 
was a pleasure to watch their daily develop- 
ment of healthy, stocky wood, and of richly- 



32 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

colored, beautifully-shaped, veined, polished, 
erenulated leaves. Some of the canes at- 
tained a length of more than twenty feet, 
with a diameter at the base of three-fourths 
of an inch, before they were checked by the 
cold of autumn. The health and vigor of 
the vines still continue undiminished, and 
they annually bear many clusters of fine 
fruit. 

Glass graperies are not uncommon nowa- 
days ; and the writer's experience in this 
interesting department of horticulture would 
hardly be worth relating except as an illus- 
tration of the superiority of an artificial cli- 
mate over a harsh natural one for the 
cultivation of semi-hardy and tender vines 
and plants. Foreign grapes, varieties of the 
Vitis vinifera, it is well known, will not suc- 
ceed in the Atlantic States, even when 
planted several degrees farther south than 
their original homes in Europe and Asia. 



INTRODUCTORY. 33 

If one has a greenhouse in his garden, he 
is, to a certain extent, independent of the 
chanoinof seasons and of inclement skies. In 
winter, when the sun shines, he can enjoy a 
summer-like temperature under the protect- 
ing glass ; and, by adding artificial heat, he 
can surround himself with greenery and 
bloom. Even when the sun is veiled by 
thick clouds, its heat-rays penetrate through 
the vapors of the upper air, so that the tem- 
perature of the air within the greenhouse is 
very perceptibly raised. To the susceptible 
invalid in winter, weary of the prison-life of 
a sitting-room, perhaps ill lighted and ill 
ventilated, a greenhouse on a sunny day 
seems a delightful change. The gales of 
January or of March may be roughly scour- 
ging the world outside ; but under the glass 
roof the air is quiet and genial like a winter's 
morning in the Antilles. The enfeebled 
system absorbs the magnetic, vitalizing 

3 



34 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

rays in every pore. Our style of domestic 
architecture will not, as a general rule, allow 
of having, like the old Romans, solaria on the 
house-tops. Our solaria for the enjoyment 
of sun-baths must be on a less-elevated situ- 
ation; and, for a large class of invalids in 
winter, must be under glass. 

It will not be questioned that tender plants 
which have been enfeebled by exposure to a 
harsh atmosphere can generally be restored 
to vigor by simply placing them under the 
shelter of a glass roof. Considering the es- 
sential solidarity, and oneness of origin, of 
the two organized kingdoms of Nature, their 
close similarity in their lowest forms, so that 
scientific men yet disagree as to the point 
where the vegetable kingdom ends and the 
animal kingdom begins, it would seem no 
more than a just inference, that, in their more 
developed forms, they must still have many 
attributes or properties in common. Is it 



INTRODUCTORY. 35 

not, then, reasonable to suppose that the 
treatment required by delicate, exotic plants, 
which have become diseased in an ungenial 
climate, is, with some modifications, the 
treatment proper for animals and for human 
beings enfeebled by the same cause? For 
man also, under these inclement skies, is not 
yet acclimated, but may be considered an 
exotic from the warmer regions of the planet 
which undoubtedly gave him birth. 

A few years since, a gentleman of Phila- 
delphia — Gen. A. J. Pleasonton — instituted 
some experiments with animals placed under 
glass, or in glass-covered pens, in winter. 
He found that healthy animals, such as 
young pigs, grew more rapidly than in ordi- 
nary pens ; while a sick calf was speedily re- 
stored to full health, and made a surprising 
growth. The glass used in the pens was 
half blue or violet colored, and half common 
or colorless. The experimenter attributed 



36 . LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

the beneficial effect to the blue glass alone, 
from the previous wonderful effect it had 
seemed to produce upon the growth and 
fruiting of some vines in a grapery in which 
it had been used. Yet it is more than proba- 
ble, that, if all the glass in the pens had been 
colorless, the same, or perhaps even a supe- 
rior effect would have been produced upon 
the animals. The time of year being winter, 
they had the full benefit of the sun's light 
and warmth, with no exposure to cold winds 
and storms. 

These experiments * were not thorough 
enough to be conclusive upon any point ; and 

* Some experiments of the writer's with fowls having 
the roup and other disorders showed conclusively that 
recovery was much more certain and rapid when the sick 
buds were placed under the shelter of a greenhouse than 
when confined in an ordinary pen, or allowed to roam at 
large. 

The claim of the Philadelphia gentleman in regard to 
the efficacy of the violet rays in promoting vegetable and 






INTRODUCTORY. 37 

they certainly do not warrant the conclusion 
that the beneficial effect was owing solely to 
that portion of the glass which was colored 
blue. As far as they go, they simply coin- 
cide with the inference deducible from a 
common-sense view of the subject ; which is, 
that domestic animals, whether sick or well, 
will thrive better when protected from the 
storms and cold of winter, if, at the same 
time, they can have the benefit of the sun's 
light and warmth, than they will in pens of 
the ordinary construction. 

animal growth is not sustained by later experimenters, 
such as Professor Pfeiffer of Marburg, and by Selim and 
Placentim. The experiments of these gentlemen show 
that the yellow rays are more promotive of the evolution 
of carbonic acid in animals, and its absorption in plants, 
than any other color in the spectrum, or than white light ; 
the violet rays having the least power in these respects, 
excepting the red rays in the case of animals. The absorp- 
tion of carbonic acid by plants, and its evolution by ani- 
mals, are prime essentials to the growth and health of 
each. 



38 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

From the great similarity of the human 
organization to that of the other mammalia 
lower in the scale of being, it is reasonable 
to infer that a like beneficial effect would 
follow if invalids with certain diseases hay- 
ing their origin in vicissitudes of weather, 
among them consumption, were placed, dur- 
ing the inclement season, in an environ- 
ment permitting the fullest entrance to the 
sun's warmth and light, while, at the same 
time, the unfavorable influences of a rough 
atmosphere were excluded. Such an experi- 
ment — if that can be called an experiment 
which appears to the reflective intellect an 
absolute certainty — can only be satisfacto- 
rily tried on a very large scale. If properly 
carried out, it would call into exercise all 
the resources that modern science, aided by 
a lavish use of capital, can command ; and the 
results would undoubtedly be commensurate 
with the means employed. In the succeed- 



INTRODUCTORY. 39 

ing pages, it is hoped to demonstrate, beyond 
reasonable cavil, that such an investment of 
money would be profitable to capitalists, as 
well as greatly beneficial to invalids. 



CHAPTER II. 

PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 

Many millions of treasure directed by the 
best practical science have been expended in 
costly glass houses for the protection of rare 
plants, or for the growing of non-hardy 
fruits; but neither thought nor money has 
been given to furnish adequate winter shel- 
ters for the myriads of tender human plants 
whose physical systems are too weak to 
endure the rough weather of a harsh and 
capricious clime. Yet there are indications 
that the time is not very distant when this 
defect in our civilization will be remedied. 
The means for remedying it can be found 
only in a system of winter gardens, which, 

40 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 41 

as will be shown in the sequel, shall also be 
summer gardens during the warm season, on 
a scale of magnitude startling to timid 
minds, and in which the chief materials of 
construction shall be iron and glass. 

The London Crystal Palace of 1851 demon- 
strated the wonderful adaptability of iron 
and glass in combination for the construction 
of large edifices. The history of this famous 
building . is still fresh in the minds of this 
generation of readers. Most of them can 
recall how marvellously rapid was its con- 
struction; its exceeding cheapness, costing 
less in proportion to its size than an ordinary 
barn ; and how, having admirably answered 
its purpose as an exhibition-building, and at- 
tracted the wondering admiration of people 
of all nations, it was taken down, and recon- 
structed, with some modifications, at Syden- 
ham, as a permanent pleasure-resort for the 
people of London and vicinity. For beauty, 



42 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

convenience, and cheapness of construction, 
combined, the Crystal Palace for the World's 
Fair of 1851 stands unrivalled among the ex- 
hibition-buildings that have adorned the capi- 
tals of the world. The sequence of events 
that led to the realization of this unique and 
splendid structure may be unfamiliar to some 
of the readers of these pages. 

In the year 1831, a gigantic species of 
water-lily, with floating leaves many feet in 
circumference, each of them capable of sup- 
porting, without sinking, the weight of a 
half-grown boy, and with flowers of corre- 
sponding dimensions, was discovered by 
Schomberg, the botanist, in the Berbice, — 
one of the sluggish rivers of Demerara. Seeds 
of this immense water-plant were sent to 
England, and fell into the hands of Joseph 
Paxton, then horticultural manager of Chats- 
worth, the princely seat of the Duke of Dev- 
onshire. A single plant raised from these 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 43 

seeds was treated with the most careful at- 
tention to its supposed needs. It was placed 
in a soil of peat and burnt loam ; the tem- 
perature of the house was nicely regulated ; 
the water in its tank was artificially warmed, 
and its surface was gently agitated by ma- 
chinery in imitation of the ripples of a river. 
Under such extra care, the plant expanded 
with wonderful rapidity: it soon outgrew 
the accommodations provided for it, and it 
became indispensable to speedily enlarge its 
habitation. Being a man fertile in resources, 
and having carte blanche from the wealthy 
and liberal-minded duke as to expense, Mr. 
Paxton accomplished this in a few weeks ; 
and the result was a beautiful structure of 
iron and glass, in which the Victoria Regia 
could expand and blossom as freely as in its 
native stream. The conservatory thus has- 
tily erected was the germ of the Crystal 
Palace, for the plans of which Joseph Paxton 
was made Sir Joseph. 



44 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

Thus, if the Victoria Regia had not been 
discovered; if seeds of the plant had not 
been sent to England ; if these seeds had not 
found their way to Chatsworth, or had failed 
to germinate ; and if a less ingenious person 
than Paxton had taken them in charge, — then 
the marvellous glass palace of the World's 
Fair would not have been built, but, instead, 
Hyde Park would have been lumbered with 
the ungainly pile of bricks and mortar de- 
cided upon at first by the building com- 
mittee : so that, if any link in the chain of 
seemingly incongruous and unimportant cir- 
cumstances had been lacking, the present 
age would probably have seen no adequate 
exemplar of the grand results that may be 
effected when iron and glass are used as the 
chief materials in the building of large edi- 
fices. 

The conservatory at Chatsworth, though, 
of course, it could not compare in size with 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM, 45 

the World's-Fair building, was yet a splen- 
did specimen of a plant-house, unequalled at 
that day in size and appointments. Two 
acres of glass panes were required in its con- 
struction, and it contained several distinct 
climates to suit the needs of plants from dif- 
ferent zones. Some idea of its size and of 
the ultra regal splendors of the ducal palace 
may be formed from the fact, that, while 
Queen Victoria was once visiting at Chats- 
worth, she entered the conservatory one 
evening with the duke in a carriage-and- 
four, while the beautiful structure blazed 
and glittered in her honor with the light of 
fourteen thousand burners. Enchanted Avith 
the brilliant scene, the young queen turned 
to her host, and exclaimed, " Devonshire, you 
beat me ! " If such marvellous glass struc- 
tures have already been built for conserva- 
tories and for exhibition-purposes, what may 
not be expected in the future, when the 



46 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

same material shall be used for the greatly 
more important purpose of constructing sani- 
tary resorts for the prevention and cure of 
some of the worst maladies that afflict and 
almost decimate the Northern peoples ? For 
it will yet be generally acknowledged, that 
the great loss of valuable life, due to the ill 
effects of extreme and changeable climates, 
can be very largely reduced through the 
beneficent agency of the material called 
glass. 

In the present stage of our civilization, 
human life, judging from the general apathy 
in regard to its needless waste, is considered 
to be of less importance than the lives of 
brutes. Little heed is paid to the hard logic 
of statistics, which shows that more than one- 
third of the human race, or at least of that 
portion called civilized, dies before reaching 
the age of five years. " Of all the coffins 
that are made in London," wrote Charles 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 47 

Dickens, " more than one in three is made 
for a little child." Add to this slaughter of 
the innocents the needless mortality at more 
advanced stages of life, and the aggregate 
becomes so enormous as to make it seem a 
marvel that even the present slow increase 
in the population of Christendom is main- 
tained. In a new country like our own, 
with an immense area of unoccupied terri- 
tory, the subject assumes an importance, 
which, from the merely utilitarian point of 
view, it does not possess in the more dense- 
ly-peopled countries of the globe. Until 
our vast domain is filled with happy homes, 
we shall continue to welcome the throngs of 
emigrants that seek our hospitable shores 
from the countries over the ocean. They are 
considered, and rightly so, to be a most im- 
portant element in the enhancement of the 
wealth and power of the nation. Yet while 
the peasants of Europe are encouraged to 



48 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

emigrate, even by the lure of free home- 
steads, very little heed is paid to the need- 
less waste of life that is constantly taking 
place in our native-born population. 

If each raw Irishman or German that 
lands from the emigrant-ships, with no other 
wealth than the ability and will to work for 
a living, is worth, as has been estimated, not 
less than a thousand dollars to the country, 
then certainly a native American, in the 
same circumstances, is worth at least as 
much. If he is threatened or attacked by 
maladies liable to a fatal termination, and his 
health is restored by the use of proper 
means, then there is a thousand dollars, or 
its equivalent, saved to the wealth of the 
nation. Is it not about time to supplement 
the Poor Richard maxim, that "a penny 
saved is as good as a penny earned," by the 
nobler one, that a life saved is as good as a 
life imported ? Often, in fact, it might be a 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 49 

great deal better, considering the character 
of some of the human raw material that 
comes to us from the Old World. The utili- 
tarian, the dollars-and-cents view of the 
matter, is not, of course, the highest one that 
might be taken : but it is the one most 
likely to be heeded in an age when the first 
question asked in relation to any undertak- 
ing is, " Will it pay ? " 

The site of a sanitarium, it is obvious, 
should be on high land, to secure the prime 
essentials of pure air and thorough drainage 
of the soil. A level-topped hill of sufficient 
area, with a gravelly subsoil, would be one of 
the best possible locations. The establish- 
ment, as has already been said, should be on 
an extensive scale. Only on a generous 
scale of expenditure could satisfactory re- 
sults be produced, either remedially or finan- 
cially. The form of the main edifice, 
whether the ground-plan is a circle, a square, 



50 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

a parallelogram, a Greek cross, or other 
figure, is not, for purposes of illustration, 
very material; though an approach to the 
compact form of the square or circle would 
be much preferable to a long, narrow, cen- 
tipede-shaped structure like the building for 
the Vienna Exposition. The chief materials 
of construction would be iron and glass. 
These materials necessitate a light, airy, 
graceful style of architecture. As the circle 
is the simplest and most economical of ma- 
terials for enclosing a given space of any 
geometric figure, we will suppose the 
ground-plan of the edifice to be round ; 
though the mechanical difficulties of erect- 
ing a circular building would be somewhat 
greater than if the shape were rectangular. 
The diameter of the edifice should then be 
at least fifteen hundred feet. The walls of a 
circular building of this size would enclose 
an area of a little over forty acres, — not far 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 51 

from the size of Boston Common, exclusive 
of the Public Garden. There may be some 
who will consider the building of edifices of 
such immense size entirely impracticable ; 
but, to the resources of modern engineering 
and mechanical skill, there is, practically, no 
limit in this direction, except the amount of 
capital at command. Buildings of more 
than half the size proposed have already 
been erected. The London - Exhibition 
building of 1862 covered an area, with the 
picture-gallery and annexes, of twenty-four 
and a half acres. A forty-acre building is 
quite within the limits of the practicable. 

The walls of the edifice would be forty or 
fifty feet high, and would be supported by 
iron columns of the proper dimensions, 
bedded in concrete at the base, and likewise 
by a cordon of ornamental iron towers 
eighteen or twenty feet in diameter, rising 
above the walls. The vast expanse of the 



52 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

glass roof would be supported by regular 
rows of lofty iron columns, upholding the 
symmetrical system of arches, girders, and 
rafters overhead. The roof would rise at a 
gentle, regular pitch from the walls towards 
the centre, where it would be nearly a hun- 
dred feet from the ground below. The 
glass panes covering it would be no less than 
one-third of an inch in thickness, and four 
feet long. The sashes they would be fitted 
into would be arranged on the well-known 
ridge-and-furrow principle, with alternate 
angular depressions and elevations, the lower 
angles forming gutters to carry the rain- 
water into the hollow columns, whence it 
would flow into the system of drain-pipes 
and sewers. In the centre of the edifice 
would rise a dome of lofty proportions, 
artistic and graceful in its outlines and 
adornments. This dome would be furnished 
with ample ventilators worked from below. 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 53 

The steam-boilers for warming the edifice in 
the absence or inadequacy of the sun's rays 
would be in the lower stories of the towers 
outside the walls ; which would thus serve a 
double use, besides being a pleasing archi- 
tectural feature of the building. Pure air 
would constantly pass into the interior of 
the garden through a sufficient number of 
apertures near each tower in the lower 
portion of the walls. This fresh, cold air 
would be warmed on its passage into the 
building by passing through net-works or 
coils of hot steam-pipes. There would thus 
be an abundant and constant, though gentle, 
flow of pure, warm air from all points of the 
base of the garden towards the centre ; 
where, in accordance with the familiar law 
governing heated atmosphere, it would rise 
and flow out through the ventilators in the 
dome. Such a constant influx at the base 
and efflux at the top of the building would 



54 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

insure the greatest purity of the air within. 
It would have none of the oppressiveness 
often experienced in a common, ill-ventilated 
conservatory, but would be in the highest 
degree agreeable and healthful. The means 
of ventilation would be under such easy 
control as to enable those in charge of that 
department to maintain a nearly uniform 
temperature, whatever might be the fluctua- 
tions of temperature outside. 

The aesthetic details, the adornment of 
the grounds inside, will now be briefly con- 
sidered. Although the constructive details 
of form, size, materials, &c, have to be first 
considered, yet the adornment of the grounds 
within the walls, and the furnishing of 
ample means to gratify the various mental 
needs of a large community of people of 
diverse tastes, is a question of the highest 
importance to the success of the undertak- 
ing. In this, as in all other departments, 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 55 

considerations of expense should not be 
allowed to hinder the grand result intended 
to be accomplished; which would be the 
creation of an arboreal and floral Eden, 
where the most consummate art would be so 
concealed as to seem only nature under 
superior conditions. 

The area of forty acres would require for 
its laying-out and embellishment the careful 
thought of the most accomplished landscape- 
gardeners. All the attractions that un- 
stinted means can command for the adorn- 
ment of pleasure-grounds would be here 
called into requisition. Broad, winding, 
gravelled avenues and serpentine paths 
would lead among rock-work, shrubbery, 
clumps of ornamental trees, trim lawns, and 
parterres of flowers ; over ravines spanned 
by graceful bridges ; around miniature lakes 
and fountains ; and by the side of grassy 
banks, where the winter sunbeams would 



56 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

linger as warmly as if it were June. There 
would be swings, and archery and croquet 
grounds ; there would be aviaries of birds 
from all climes ; there would be a large and 
well-stocked aquarium, and a zoological 
garden containing specimens of such animals 
as are especially noted for interesting tricks 
and manners, or for beauty of form and 
coloring. Music would lend its subtle 
charm ; birds of song would flit among the 
tree-tops or in the shrubbery ; the bell-like 
notes of the hermit-thrush, the haunting 
sweetness of the veery's song, the gushing 
joy of the bobolink, the cheerful refrain of 
the song-sparrow, the flute-like call of the 
oriole, the robin's clear madrigal, and the 
blue-bird's warble, would call up reminis- 
cences of the bright days of early summer, 
though winter might still desolate the world 
outside. At occasional times, the music of 
a large and perfectly-trained orchestra would 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 57 

set the warm air of the garden pulsing with 
the lively, the martial, or the grand religious 
strains of the great tone-masters of the 
world. 

The hundreds of lofty iron columns re- 
quired to support the crystal roof and the 
vast dome would be made to harmonize 
with the scene by having their formal out- 
lines concealed under a covering of rapidly- 
growing, climbing vines. They would thus 
resemble rather the tall trunks of a symmet- 
rically-planted grove of palm-trees, wreathed 
with tropic climbers, than the hard, unattrac- 
tive supports of the edifice. Scattered 
everywhere, singly and in social groups, in 
sunny nooks and cosey corners, would be 
found an abundance of the most inviting 
seats and lounges. Seated or reclining in 
these after the needful exercise of the day, 
the invalid visitors could pass the time in 
any rational way to which they felt inclined , 



58 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

in some light, agreeable work, in reading, in 
conversation, in games of chance or skill, or 
in observing the animated, enchanting scene 
around, while listening to the inspiriting 
strains from the orchestra, or the softer 
melody of the singing-birds. 

Within the transparent walls of a palace- 
garden of the size designated, ten thousand 
or more visitors would find ample room for 
exercise and recreation, an atmosphere pure 
and agreeable in temperature, plenty of 
opportunities for taking sun-baths, agreeable 
society, and countless objects of interest to 
occupy and interest their minds. The un- 
healthy mental habit, so common with in- 
valids, of an introverted, anxious study of 
their own symptoms, would give place to a 
lively and healthy interest in their novel and 
delightful surroundings. They would almost 
forget that they were invalids amid the mani- 
fold attractions on every hand. With none 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 59 

of the unfavorable winter conditions of 
ordinary house-life to contend with, the 
recuperative powers of the human organiza- 
tion, the vis medicatrix naturce, aided by the 
pure, mild air, the regular exercise, the 
genial sunshine, albeit of midwinter, and 
the more healthy mental status, would, in a 
large majority of cases of phthisis pulmonalis 
in its earlier stages, and in some other 
diseases, soon show the happiest results ; 
the irritated, tuberculous lungs would grad- 
ually heal; the wearing cough would sub- 
side ; the pains of the rheumatic would yield 
to the sanitive influences of the place, and 
retire into some unknown limbo, where are 
gathered those undesirable things, which, 
when happily lost, are never sought for 
nor regretted ; * strength would return to 
weakened frames, roundness to wasted limbs, 
and happiness to clouded minds. 

* Damnum absque injuria, as the lawyers say. 



60 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

It is admitted that these are rose-colored 
pictures ; but they are in no degree over- 
drawn. They fall short of what will be re- 
alized when even a small fraction of the out- 
lay, the thought, and the time, that are now 
given to the destruction of human life, shall 
be given to its preservation. So long was it 
taught in the schools of medicine, ex cathe- 
dra, that consumptive disease was, from its 
nature, wholly incurable, that the idea still 
influences a large portion of the medical 
faculty, as well as of the public at large.* 

* The science of medicine in its present state has re- 
ceived the hardest blows from its own professors. Here is 
what Dr. John Mason Good says in the premises: " The 
science of medicine is a barbarous jargon; and the effects 
of our medicines on the system are in the highest degree 
uncertain ; except, indeed, that they have destroyed more 
lives than war, pestilence, and famine combined." Simi- 
lar testimony is given by other distinguished physicians, 
among them our own Dr. Holmes, who thinks, that, if the 
greater part of the materia medica were thrown into the sea, 
it would be better for mankind, and worse for the fishes. 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM, 61 

No cloubt it is incurable by drugs, whether 
in heroic or infinitesimal doses: but give 
Mother Nature a fair chance, furnish the 
proper conditions, and she will often per- 
form marvellous cures. These conditions, it 
is obvious to the candid, receptive mind, 
would exist in perfection in a winter-garden 
like the one described, — not wholly de- 
scribed, however ; for some important details 
have not been referred to. 

The large numbers of people that would 
congregate at an establishment like the one 
under consideration would need the best of 
boarding accommodations close at hand, so 
that no exposure to cold, stormy weather 
need occur in going to or from the hotels. 
The plan includes a broad, glass-enclosed 
street, extending entirely around the central 
edifice, at the distance of, perhaps, three hun- 
dred feet from its walls. This circular bou- 
levard would be at least seventy-five feet 



62 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

wide, and would have an ample carriage- 
way in the centre, paved with wood or 
asphalt, and at the sides roomy, level walks, 
separated from the carriage-way by iron 
railings covered with flowering vines. The 
walls of this boulevard need not be more 
than one-third as high as the garden-walls, 
and the roof would be arched. It would be 
warmed and ventilated like the garden, with 
which it would be connected by glass pas- 
sage-ways. Here would be the finest and 
most unique of street-arcades, — a crystal- 
covered, circular Broadway, or Boulevard des 
Italiens, more than a mile in circuit, adapted 
for drives, for horseback-riding, or for prom- 
enading, and available for use by the most 
' susceptible invalids in all weathers. Let the 
storms of winter rage as fiercely as they 
might out of doors : they would never disturb 
the serene quiet and warmth of this circling 
arcade. On its outer circumference would 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 63 

be the spacious hotels for the visitors, con- 
nected with it by short, enclosed passage- 
ways. The hotels, twenty or thereabouts in 
number, would be managed by thoroughly 
competent and trustworthy persons, who 
would see that all reasonable wants of their 
guests were provided for. The food fur- 
nished would be nutritious and wholesome. 
The warmth and ventilation of the apart- 
ments would correspond with the rest of the 
establishment. In the persons of the land- 
lords would be united the characters of the 
genial, considerate host, and of the intelli- 
gent physician. Like the other officials of 
the place, they would be picked men. 

Between the garden-walls and the encir- 
cling boulevard there would be a ring of 
ground open to the outer air, three hundred 
feet wide, and extending around the central 
building. The radiating passage-ways from 
the garden to the boulevard, eight in number, 



64 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

would divide this ring of ground into an 
equal number of distinct plats, each several 
acres in extent. These open-air gardens 
would be tastefully laid out with walks, 
grass-plots, evergreen-trees, and shrubbery: 
surrounded on all sides by high walls, they 
would be sheltered from rude winds, and 
would afford fine opportunities for exercise 
on mild, sunny days. They would also con- 
tain the spacious buildings required for gym- 
nasia, libraries, chapels, galleries of art, 
museums of natural history, theatres, bowl- 
ing-alleys, and the like, needed for the exer- 
cise, amusement, or instruction, of the visitors. 
All of these buildings would directly commu- 
nicate with the garden, or with the arcades. 
There would also be numerous shops, of 
various kinds, along the boulevard. Shop- 
ping, that occupation so congenial to the 
feminine mind, and not wholly devoid of 
attractions to the rougher sex, could thus be 
done in all weathers. 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 65 

Excepting at meal times, and during the 
hours required for sleep, but little of the 
time of the visitors would be passed in 
the hotels. Even the evenings would be 
chiefly spent in the garden and the arcades, 
which, lighted by thousands of burners, or 
by shaded, electrical lights, would seem like 
some enchanting dream of romance. Foli- 
age never appears to such beautiful advan- 
tage as under a strong artificial light : the 
shadows are deeper than under the more 
diffused light of clay; so that the graceful 
spray and finely-cut leafage of rare trees and 
plants, in an illuminated pleasure-garden, are 
brought out with salient and picturesque 
distinctness. With the brilliant light, the 
sparkling fountains, the cheerful warmth, the 
beautiful foliage and flowers, the moving 
throngs of people, and the delicious music of 
the perfectly-trained orchestra, the garden- 
palace in the evening would be another " Pal- 

6 



66 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

ace of All Delights." For those who chose 
to attend, there would also be the special 
attractions of the theatres, concert-halls, lec- 
ture-rooms, and other outside entertainments. 
Amid such an endless variety of attractions, 
there would be no opportunity for indulging 
morbid fancies or forebodings. Cheerfulness 
would take the place of despondency, or of 
oft-recurring apprehensions for the future ; 
and thus the medicament of the healing 
forces of Nature would have a fair field for 
its restorative effects. 

Works have been written to show the 
powerful influence of the mind over the 
body, either for good or ill ; but this extraor- 
dinary influence of mental conditions in its 
sanitive aspect is not recognized, nor taken 
advantage of, as it should be, by any system 
of therapeutics yet established. Imagina- 
tion is a more potent remedy in disease than 
all the drugs in the pharmacopoeia. Well- 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 67 

authenticated instances show that it is some- 
times capable of causing death, and its 
re-vitalizing power over its physical integu- 
ment is equally well established. Napoleon's 
saying, that " imagination rules the world," 
is no less true of the little world, the mi- 
crocosm of man's personality, than of the 
world of affairs. In our ideal establishment, 
the influence of the imagination would be 
taken advantage of in all possible ways to 
assist in overcoming disease. 

In the foregoing necessarily imperfect 
description of what is desirable in a remedial 
establishment for large classes of invalids, 
there is nothing that cannot be easily realized, 
when the importance of the subject shall be 
impressed, as it should be, on the minds of 
philanthropists and capitalists. As a paying 
investment, such a winter-resort would un- 
doubtedly surpass most of the popular stocks 
that command a premium on Wall or State 



68 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

Street. Although the data are not all 
attainable on which to base an exact calcula- 
tion of the cost of constructing and of operat- 
ing a sanitarium on the scale indicated, yet 
it is possible to form an approximate estimate 
of these expenses, as well as of the probable 
returns or profits. 

In an article in " The Atlantic Monthly " 
for March, 1873, and on which this essay is 
partly based, some calculations were entered 
into as to the amount of capital needed, and 
the cost of operating, as well as of the pecu- 
niary returns that could be reasonably 
expected. The Crystal Palace of 1851 was 
taken as a basis of calculation. That edifice 
contained thirty-three million cubic feet of 
space ; and it cost at the rate of one penny 
and one-twelfth per cubic foot, or an aggre- 
gate of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds 
sterling. Our ideal sanitarium would con- 
tain about four times the cubic space of the 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 69 

Crystal Palace, including garden, dome, tow- 
ers, and arcades, in the calculation, but not 
the hotels and other outside buildings. At 
the same rate per foot as the London Palace 
cost, it would require the sum of six hundred 
thousand pounds, or about three millions of 
dollars, in its construction. Owing, however, 
to the much higher prices of labor and mate- 
rials in this country than in England, and 
their general advance in both countries since 
1851, our garden-palace would cost more 
than twice the amount named. To be on 
the liberal side, we will estimate its cost at 
eight millions of dollars of our currency. 
For the land and its grading, drainage, and 
ornamentation, and for the hotels and other 
needful structures, four millions more would 
most probably be sufficient. Twelve mil- 
lions of dollars * would, therefore, be the 

* This amount is about the estimated cost of the 
Hoosac Tunnel, when completed. 



70 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

estimated capital required. The interest on 
this amount, at the liberal rate of eight per 
cent, would be nine hundred and sixty thou- 
sand dollars a year. The working expenses 
are somewhat more difficult to estimate. A 
somewhat careful study of the subject leads 
to the conclusion, that the running expenses, 
including the cost of boarding ten thousand 
visitors from the 1st of November to the 
1st of June, would not exceed $2,500,000 a 
year. Adding this amount to the interest on 
the capital, we have the sum of $3,460,000 
as the outgoes of each working year. To 
meet these expenses would be the board-bills 
of the visitors for the season. 

The price of board at the hotels should be 
placed as low as possible, so that people of 
limited means could enjoy the benefits of the 
sanitarium as well as the rich. Large num- 
bers of people can be provided for at a much 
lower rate per capita than small numbers 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 71 

would cost. Two dollars a day will not 
seem an unreasonable price, when it is con- 
sidered that it is much lower than the cost 
of living in first-class city hotels or at any 
popular Southern winter-resort, and that 
here all the inestimable advantages of the 
garden would be thrown in. At two dollars 
a day, the board-bills of ten thousand visit- 
ors for thirty weeks would foot up the very 
large sum of $4,200,000, or $740,000 more 
than the interest on the capital at eight per 
cent and the estimated working-expenses 
united. This surplus would certainly furnish 
a reserve-fund large enough to meet any 
unforeseen outlay that might occur. 

Let no person of little faith suppose for a 
moment that there would be any lack of 
visitors at a winter-resort like the one under 
consideration, even if the per diem were 
twice the rates proposed. "All that a man 
hath will he give for his life." During the 



72 LIFE UNDER GLASS, 

time that would be required to complete such 
an establishment, its great magnitude, its 
novel plan, its unexampled attractions, and 
its presumable sanitary advantages, would be 
thoroughly canvassed, not only in our own 
land, but all over that part of the globe to 
which the newspaper-press has access. It 
would be advertised gratuitously among all 
peoples, and invalids of every Northern 
country would desire to avail themselves of 
its undoubted benefits. From the opening 
clay the hotels would be filled to their ca- 
pacity with the weak-lunged, the rheumatic, 
and the declining. But the phthisical and 
the rheumatic would not be the only classes 
to whom the winter-garden would be a de- 
lightful haven of rest, where the constitution 
could recover from the injurious effects of 
exposure to a stormy world, or of an ignorant 
disregard of hygienic laws. Carlyle, in one 
of his dj^speptic moods, — if, indeed, he have 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 73 

moods of any other sort in these latter clays, 
— tells with grim humor of the time when 
he first became aware that he possessed a 
diabolical apparatus called a stomach. In a 
land where pork in all its Protean forms, 
and hot saleratus-breacl, form the chief sta- 
ples of diet, there are multitudes who have 
arrived at the same disagreeable knowledge 
in regard to their epigastric region that dis- 
turbed the Chelsea sage. There is no doubt 
that some forms of dyspepsia, for which a 
mild winter climate is recommended, would 
readily yield to the magnetic warmth, the 
wholesome, well-cooked, nutritious food, and 
the systematic exercise, furnished by the pro- 
posed sanitive establishment. And there 
are still other classes to whom a residence 
within its walls would insure speedy relief 
from their maladies, and, finally, a permanent 
cure : one such class, for instance, would 
consist of the vast army of performers on 



74 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

what Charles Dickens called the " great 
American catarrh," although the instrument 
is well known in England and other coun- 
tries. 

Who will have the hardihood to say that 
the winter-garden would lack patronage, 
when there are so many times ten thousand 
people in the land, without including visitors 
from other lands, who would anxiously watch 
its progress to completion, and joyfully avail 
themselves of its unexampled advantages ? 

There is, however, another view of the 
subject, well worthy of having a volume 
written in its elucidation, but which can 
only be briefly touched upon here ; and that 
is the advantages of such a winter-resort for 
well people. Even if an acknowledged 
invalid were never allowed to enter its gates, 
a place with such marvellous and unique 
charms as the winter-garden would possess 
would be thronged for half the year by 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 75 

people of wealth, culture, and fashion from 
all parts of the land. No city in America 
can at present offer such allurements to 
men and women of means — whether they 
were refined and intellectual, or sensuous 
and superficial — as would be concentrated 
within the limits of the establishment. New 
York's summer pride and joy, the beautiful 
Central Park, would appear bleak and barren 
under a wintry sky compared with the 
wealth of verdure and of bloom to be found 
under the forty acres of crystal forming the 
garden-roof. The elite of the great cities 
would flock to it, as in summer they seek 
the cool breezes of the mountains, or of 
Newport, Long Branch, and Cape May. 
Within its sheltered precinct they would 
escape all the multiplied discomforts of city 
streets in winter and spring, — the driving 
storms of rain and snow, the blustering 
north-west gales, the slippery sidewalks, the 



76 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

almost endless mud and slush., and the blind- 
ing clouds of dust, that make a Northern city 
in winter, for all its social, artistic, and lite- 
rary attractions, a most wretched place of 
abode for sensitive people. The contrast 
between the comfortless streets and squares 
of the cities in winter, with the verdant 
beauty and the quiet warmth of the winter- 
garden during the same season, would be too 
great to pass unheeded among the wealthy 
residents of Northern towns. At the garden 
they would not only escape all the discom- 
forts named ; but they would find, besides 
warmth and greenery, all the means for 
amusement or culture they left behind in the 
storm-scourged city. Operas, concerts, thea- 
tres, lectures,- libraries, galleries, museums, 
— all of high excellence, — would occupy the 
charmed hours. The broad, circling, arch- 
roofed boulevard would be a more thronged 
and fashionable drive on a mid- winter's day 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 11 

than even the avenue at Newport on an 
August afternoon. Owners of fast trotters 
and of stylish turnouts would all be anxious 
to display their teams and themselves on 
such a novel and magnificent track before 
the assembled wealth and fashion of the 
land. Each ingredient that goes to make 
up the summer crowd at a great watering- 
place would find its counterpart here, — for- 
tune-hunters of both sexes, mammas with 
marriageable and unmarriageable daughters, 
fast young men, and flirting, gay young 
women. All of these well-known types 
would muster in their* usual force ; but there 
would also be very many visitors of a differ- 
ent stamp, — people of refined manners and 
cultivated minds, whose combined influence 
would be felt in the tone of the place, and 
would not be without its beneficial effect on 
even the brainless fops and feminine votaries 
of millinery. Poets, artists, essayists, novel- 



78 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

ists, would find here endless suggestions and 
materials to work into poems, pictures, es- 
says, and stories. Especially would the 
many educated, delicate, sensitive, spirituelle 
young and middle-aged women that are to 
be found in wealthy families, and whose 
poetic, impressible natures, and general frail- 
ness of organization, make them keenly alive 
to the discomforts caused by the atmospheric 
changes of winter, find an earthly paradise 
within the genial realm of glass, where win- 
ter and rough weather were obsolete terms. 

It has already been shown, that, if any 
reliance whatever can be placed upon d priori 
estimates, such a winter gathering-place 
would be a profitable investment of capital ; 
but an important source of income was not 
mentioned. A location would be chosen 
where land was comparatively cheap, and a 
tract of several thousand acres secured. 
Two or three hundred acres immediately 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 79 

surrounding the establishment would be 
reserved for an outside park. It would be 
finely laid out, and ornamented with drives, 
foot-paths, skating-ponds, groves of decidu- 
ous and evergreen trees, trim hedge-rows, 
and shrubbery. This outer park would be 
the pleasure-resort of the visitors on fine, 
sunny days. The remainder of the land 
outside of the park would be surveyed and 
mapped into lots, streets, and squares, to 
meet the requirements of a large, prospective 
population. People of all trades and occupa- 
tions would be drawn towards the city of 
glass, to supply the wants, real or fanciful, of 
its thousands of inhabitants. Men of wealth 
and taste would surround the park with 
ornamental villas. A large and prosperous 
town, ultimately to grow into a city, would 
inevitably soon crystallize within sight of the 
lofty dome of the garden-palace, — a Dome 
of the Invalides of even more magnificent 



80 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

proportions than the famous landmark of 
strangers in the French capital. Building- 
lots could not be otherwise .than in brisk 
demand in the vicinity of a magnet so 
powerful. The income to the corporation 
from this source alone would be very great. 
Four large, distinct towns have sprung up 
around the Sydenham Palace since its erec- 
tion a few years ago. Another source of 
income would be the rent of stores along the 
circular boulevard, or the lease of land for 
their erection by other parties. 

Thus far the sanitarium, or the garden- 
palace, has been considered only in its win- 
ter aspect ; but, paradoxical and improbable 
as it may seem, it can be demonstrated that 
its sanitive effects during hot weather would 
be scarcely less than during the cold season. 
This statement will excite the surprise and 
incredulity of many who have not considered 
the subject in all its bearings, nor familiar- 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 81 

izecl themselves with some of the most impor- 
tant inventions and discoveries of the age. 

It is well known that hot weather is often 
quite as injurious to those suffering from 
pulmonary disease as the cold, changeable 
weather of winter. Dr. Ramadge of London, 
in his work on Consumption, stated that the 
cases of this disease that came under his 
notice in summer were nearly double the 
number that he treated in winter. He 
gives as the cause of this increase the aug- 
mented temperature of the weather, increas- 
ing the intensity of two of the most important 
stages of the hectic paroxysm, — the hot and 
the sweating. Dr. Rush also found the sum- 
mers of Philadelphia very unfavorable to 
those having this disease. The mortuary 
statistics of Massachusetts show that about 
as many die of lung-disease in summer as in 
winter. 

It is obvious, therefore, from the above 

6 



82 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

and much other evidence that might be 
adduced,. that those afflicted with pulmonary 
disease need a mild, equable temperature all 
the year round. A temperature never rising 
much above 65° Fahrenheit, nor falling 
much below that point, would undoubtedly 
be the best. It has already been shown that 
such a temperature could be easily main- 
tained in the glass garden during the cold 
season ; and it is proposed to show that the 
temperature of the air within could be kept 
down to that point during the hottest clays 
of summer. 

A few years since a machine was intro- 
duced into some of the English collieries to 
perform the difficult and dangerous work of 
kirving, or cutting under the seams of coal ; * 
an operation which had previously been per- 

* Compressed air was first practically used in the con- 
struction and ventilation of the Mont-Cenis Tunnel, and it 
has since been used in the Hoosac and other tunnels. 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 83 

formed by hand, and by which many lives 
had been destroyed. The machine did the 
work much quicker, cheaper, and better than 
it had previously been done; and at the same 
time it produced another most important 
benefit, — it cooled and ventilated the mines. 
It was operated by means of air, highly com- 
pressed by an engine at the mouth of the 
mine, and conducted by flexible tubes to the 
required spot. According to a well-known 
law in physics, air, when compressed to a 
sufficient degree, is deprived of its heat. 
Tyndall has lately succeeded in compressing 
it to such a degree, that, when it issued from 
the pipe, it was so intensely cold as to con- 
geal all the moisture of the room into minute 
snowflakes. In the collieries it was found 
that the air used to drive the machines at a 
pressure of three atmospheres, or somewhat 
over forty pounds to the square inch, issued 
from the conducting pipes at nearly a freez- 



84 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

ing temperature. The oppressive warmth 
natural to deep mines was very sensibly 
diminished, and the condition of the air 
within was also materially improved, by the 
constant influx of pure cold air from the 
surface of the ground. Air, artificially 
reduced in volume, has since been applied to 
other purposes, such as ventilating long rock 
tunnels during excavation, and driving the 
perforating machines.* 



* " For the construction of the tunnel (Mont Cenis), the 
great instrument in the hands of the engineers is com- 
pressed air. And what an instrument it is ! By its aid 
they furnish air for respiration, wind to drive away 
vapors, power to run machines ; they eject water to play 
against the rock, produce cold to temper the atmosphere, 
and heat by a blast at the forges near the entrance. Thus 
air, wind, power, water, cold, heat, can all be applied, 
and precisely where they are wanted. This sounds like 
fable; but it is a literal truth." — Report on European 
Tunnels by Charles S. Stokrow, 1862 ; Massachusetts 
Reports. 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 85 

It is evident, therefore, that compressed 
air is the easily-applied remedy for too high 
a temperature in buildings as well as in 
mines. The boilers in the basements of the 
iron towers surrounding the sanitarium, 
which in winter would furnish steam to 
warm the edifice, would, during hot summer 
days, furnish the force for working many 
powerful compressing engines. Pipes of 
suitable size would lead underground from 
the towers to all parts of the interior, where 
the compressed, refrigerated air would escape 
through large, concealed registers, perforated 
with small holes like a cullender or the fine 
rose of a watering-pot. The powerful jets of 
cold air would thus be so sifted, or divided, 
that they would escape ordinary notice. 
Cold air being heavier than warm, it would 
remain in the lower portion of the garden, 
where it would do the most good, until 
warmed by the sun, when it would rise, and 



86 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

flow out through the upper ventilators to 
make room for a fresh supply. Portions of 
the roof would be shaded by canvas awnings 
during hot weather; and the refrigerating 
effect of the compressed air would be further 
aided by closing the* ventilators in the lower 
portions of the edifice, while those in the 
dome and roof would remain open. 

By the means above mentioned, the sum- 
mer temperature of the sanitarium could be 
kept clown to any desirable point. The air 
within would be perfectly pure and pleasant- 
ly cool, like mountain-air in warm weather. 
The susceptible visitors would encounter 
none of those sudden atmospheric changes 
common to our climate at all seasons, and 
which are quite as injurious in their effects 
upon invalids in summer as in winter. So 
far as the important conditions of tempera- 
ture and pure air could aid in the recovery 
of the visitors, they would be far better situ- 



PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 87 

ated than they could be in any natural 
climate to be found on the globe. Their 
surroundings also, social, entertaining, sani- 
tive, and educational, would far surpass any 
other summer-resort in the country. Invalids, 
however querulous and notional some of 
them may often appear, are still an intelli- 
gent class : they would not be backward in 
recognizing, and availing themselves of, the 
inestimable advantages of such a refuge from 
the debilitating heat of the dog-days. The 
sanitarium in summer would be quite as well 
patronized as during the wintry season. 
Like St. Peter's at Rome, it would have its 
own climate, independent of the changing 
seasons outside. To its equable temperature 
would apply the description of Madame de 
Stael of the unvarying climate of the 
interior of the great Roman basilica: "II 
a ses saisons a lui, son printemps perpetuel, 
que Tatmosphere du dehors n'altere jamais." 



88 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

But the perpetual spring of St. Peter's, with 
its " dim religious light," its cold stone 
floor, and its ponderous columns, could bear 
no comparison with the cheerful brightness, 
the expanded area, and the leafy beauty, of 
our ideal garden-palace. 

Such is a general description of the author's 
plan of a sanitarium, on a scale commensu- 
rate in some degree with the importance of 
the end to be subserved, but not all beyond 
the resources of any large civilized commu- 
nity to carry out. Even if all the details of 
the plan were perfected (which, it is needless 
to say, they are not), they could not well be 
given in an essay intended to be untechnical 
and popular in its scope. Many desirable 
minor features of the plan, that have recom- 
mended themselves to the approval of the 
writer during his study of the subject, have 
not been mentioned. For instance, the walls 
inside of the central garden, as well as of the 






PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 89 

arcade and connecting passage-ways, could 
be utilized to advantage by training up the 
supporting columns and mullions thousands 
of vines of the Hamburg, Chasselas, Muscat, 
and other fine varieties of foreign grapes 
which will thrive in this climate only under 
glass. Great quantities of the finest fruit 
could be grown and ripened in this way 
without extra expense, which, with a little 
care in keeping, would supply the hotel- 
tables throughout the winter with grapes for 
the dessert, contributing in no small degree 
to the health and gratification of the visitors. 
Another plan of utility, which would recom- 
mend itself especially to those many visitors 
who were lovers of fancy poultry, would be 
to use one or more of the open-air gardens, 
between the central edifice and the arcade, 
for extensive poultry-yards. In these large, 
sheltered, sunny ranges, numerous flocks of 
the best breeds of gallinaceous and aquatic 



90 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

fowls would help to furnish eggs and chick- 
ens for the tables d'hote; and, besides, would 
be a pleasing addition to the amusements of 
the guests. But many such details as these 
must be left till the capital is subscribed, a 
board of directors chosen, a location pur- 
chased, and the ground-plan and elevation 
of the buildings decided upon. 



CHAPTER in. 



CONCLUSION. 



There is a homely Scotch proverb, the 
sentiment of which Emerson has finely elab- 
orated in his essay on " Compensation," 
which says, " There was never a stinging 
nettle that hadn't a dockin-leaf close beside 
it : " the moral deducible from which is, that, 
for nearly all the evils of this world, a remedy 
is to be found close at hand. 

The dockin-leaf that is to cure the wounds 
caused by the stinging nettles of harsh cli- 
mates is the glass pane, aided by other 
appliances, some of which have been men- 
tioned in the preceding pages. It needs no 
belief in a future millennium to be very cer- 

91 



92 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

tain that the years of the world yet to come 
will see a greater regard for human life, and 
a more earnest effort to prevent its needless 
waste, than prevails at present. As it is, man 
does not live out half his allotted days. 
If we accept the deductions of M. Flourens, 
the eminent French savant, then a person 
who has reached the threescore and ten 
years of the Psalmist ought to be scarcely 
beyond the prime of life. Flourens' investi- 
gations into the laws governing the duration 
of animal life, though perhaps not entirely 
reliable, have yet a certain interest ; and his 
conclusions in regard to the natural limit of 
human life may be correct, even should the 
premises on which they were based prove to 
be untenable. He found, that, as a rule, the 
inferior animals live on the average about 
five times as long as the time it takes them 
to attain their full growth. Thus a horse is 
about five years in getting his growth ; and 



CONCL USION. 93 

the average age of horses is not far from 
twenty-five years : and so of other animals, 
domestic and wild. Reasoning from analogy, 
Flourens concluded, that, as the same laws 
of being govern mankind that rule the 
destinies of horses and other animals, and 
as it requires twenty years for man to get his 
growth, then the average duration of human 
life should be five times twenty, or one hun- 
dred years. " A man between sixty and 
seventy," says the ingenious Frenchman, 
" ought to be only in the full maturity of his 
powers, physical and intellectual."* 

Whether this hypothesis of the natural 
limit of human existence is the true one or 
not, it is evident that some do attain a life of 
one hundred years and upwards ; and perhaps 
all would, if inherited tendencies and sur- 

* For a full exposition of this theory of M. Flourens, 
see his work entitled u De la Longevite Humaine, et de la 
Quantite de Vie sur le Globe.' ' 



94 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

rounding circumstances were equally favora- 
ble to length of days. But sanitary science 
will have to make long strides before cente- 
narians become very plenty in our streets. 
Before that far-off time arrives, consumption, 
which sweeps off the very flower of human- 
ity at the present day, will be so far con- 
quered as to demand a much less proportion 
of the victims of the grim destroyer than one 
out of five. As some of the readers of these 
pages may be inclined to doubt the curabil- 
ity of this disease, even in its earlier aspects, 
it will not be out of place to quote the opin- 
ion of the celebrated Laennec, one of the 
most skilful physicians that ever lived, and 
who made the study of pulmonary disease a 
specialty. 

"The cure of consumption,"* says Laen- 

* u La guerison dans les cas de plithisie pulmonaire ou 
l'organe n' a pas ete entierement envahi, ne presente, ce 
me semble, aucun caractere d'impossibilite, ni sous le 
rapport de la nature du mal, ni sous celui de l'organe 
affecte." 



CONCL USION. 95 

nee, " when the lungs have not been entirely 
disorganized, ought not to be considered at 
all impossible, either as regards the nature 
of the disease or the part affected. The 
destruction of a part of the substance of the 
lungs is not necessarily mortal, since even 
wounds of this organ are frequently healed." 

Dr. Caswell, the almost equally eminent 
English physician, adds his testimony to that 
of his French confrere. He emphatically 
says,— 

" We cannot avoid repeating the fact, that 
pathological anatomy has, perhaps, never 
afforded more conclusive evidence in proof of 
the curability of a disease than it has in that 
of tubercular phthisis." Testimony of the 
same tenor from other distinguished physi- 
cians might be cited, if this were meant to 
be an exhaustive treatise on pulmonary dis- 
ease. But it will suffice, for the purposes of 
an untechnical essay, to bring forward two 



96 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

such names as the above in support of the 
position that consumptive disease is not 
necessarily fatal ; that, unless too deeply 
rooted, it will yield to the healing forces of 
nature, if the proper conditions of air, tem- 
perature, exercise, and diet, are furnished to 
the patient. It has been the object to show, 
in the previous chapters, that these condi- 
tions could be found in perfection nowhere 
else than in a sanitarium like or resembling 
the one described. Such an establishment 
would be under the charge of a superintend- 
ing physician of the highest intelligence and 
the strictest integrity, assisted by a corps of 
subordinates selected for the same qualities. 
All the means that have proved beneficial 
in the treatment of the malady, such as con- 
centrated nutriment, vocal gymnastics, in- 
spiration and expiration of the breath 
through tubes, &c, would be discriminatingly 
used to assist Nature in her efforts to throw 



CONCLUSION. 97 

off the disease. As to prevent is always 
better than to cure, those persons who were 
attacked with the symptoms of incipient 
phthisis would find the sanitarium a ready 
refuge, where all such unfavorable symptoms 
would speedily vanish under the genial 
influences of the place. If such an establish- 
ment were under the control of the State, 
and if it were made compulsory upon physi- 
cians to report every case of incipient lung- 
disease to the proper authorities as is now 
the case in regard to small-pox, then the 
immediate removal of such persons to the 
sanitarium would insure their speedy recov- 
ery; and thus the dragon of Consumption, 
having no victims to feed upon, would, with 
a sort of poetic justice, die of atrophy. The 
philanthropist, the capitalist, or the legisla- 
tor, who shall aid in such a desirable result, 
will deserve, far more than that old knight 
of Malta for his battle with the python, to 



98 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

have the title " Draconis Extinctor " engraved 
upon his monument. 

In the preceding pages some hard things 
have been said about our American climate, 
which were, nevertheless, quite within the 
bounds of truth. But equally hard things 
have been said of other climates. None of 
the earth climates is perfect in all respects. 
The writer once saw a weather-diary that 
had been kept by a person of a somewhat 
sensitive, poetic nature. In it he had noted 
down all the days in the year when the 
weather seemed to him to be perfect, — days 
when it was neither too hot nor too cold, 
neither too wet nor too dry, too windy nor 
too cloudy. The number of such perfect 
days, according to his reckoning, amounted 
to just five out of the three hundred and 
sixty-five ! Perhaps other years would show 
a better record, and a less fastidious observer 
might have recorded more days that were 



CONCLUSION. 99 

perfect in the same year. To a person full- 
blooded and in vigorous health, the weather, 
save as it affects his material interests, is a 
matter of little concern. To such a one, ex- 
posure to the bracing, wintry north-westers 
exhilarates and tones the whole system ; and 
a poetic temperament, even in a frail physi- 
cal organization, will find a keen delight in 
threading woodland paths while the wintry 
gales are sweeping through the tree-tops 
overhead. What Goethe said of youth, that 
it is intoxicated without wine, might be often 
said at such times of middle age, if not of 
senility. But, after making all due allow- 
ance for the good points which our American 
climate undeniably has, the fact still remains, 
that a great majority of the days of the year 
are not as agreeable nor as healthful to peo- 
ple of sensitive organizations — which term 
includes most women as well as many men 
— as they might be. It will be one of the 



100 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

chief objects of the social and sanitary 
science of the future, to neutralize, as far as 
possible, these defects of climate. 

In submitting to the public the foregoing 
plan of an establishment adapted either for 
a sanitarium or for a pleasure-resort, it is 
not claimed that no improvements can be 
suggested in the more unimportant features ; 
but the central and main ideas here ad- 
vanced are believed, for the best of reasons, 
to be impregnable to the assaults of hostile 
criticism. Probably there are some good 
matter-of-fact people, who are perfectly 
satisfied with the world as it is, who will 
consider the whole thing an idle dream of 
the imagination, about as unsubstantial in 
basis as the " stately pleasure-dome " in 
Kubla Khan ; but such incredulous souls are 
respectfully reminded that all things have to 
be imagined before they can become accom- 
plished facts in the world of realities. To 



CONCLUSION. 101 

create any thing of importance before it was 
imagined, or ideally created in the mind, 
would be an obvious impossibility. Those 
who assume to decide that any proposed un- 
dertaking is impracticable at the present 
day are very liable to have it conclusively 
shown that their souls are not prophetic 
ones. Such was the case with Dr. Dionysius 
Lardner, whose pamphlet, written to prove 
that a steamship could never cross the 
Atlantic Ocean, first reached this country 
by way of a steamship. 

It is to be expected that some of the ideas 
advanced in these pages will be assailed and 
criticised. That is the ordeal which all 
ideas, with any claim to novelty or impor- 
tance, have to encounter. But if they have, 
as is believed, a firm foundation in truth and 
reason, they will not be put down by cavil or 
vapid sarcasm. Some of the objections may 
seem plausible at first to those who have not 



102 LIFE UNDER GLASS, 

fully considered the subject, while others 
will have as little relevancy as the objection 
of a member of the British Parliament to 
the first railroad that was chartered in Great 
Britain. " Suppose," said this sapient mem- 
ber of the committee before which the great 
North-Country engineer was advocating his 
proposed undertaking, — " suppose that a 
cow should get on the track of your railroad 
when the engine was coming along." — "So 
much the worse for the coo," was the terse 
reply. 

Of not much more cogency than the com- 
mittee-man's objection to the railroad is the 
one that the glass in the garden-palace 
would be liable to be broken by summer 
hail-storms.* If hailstones of ordinary size 

* Another objection of even less cogency is the one, 
that a heavy fall of snow would crush in the roof of the 
edifice. Perhaps an expert mathematician — Prof. Pierce, 
for instance — might be able to calculate for what fraction 



CONCLUSION. 103 

should fall on glass one-third of an inch or 
more thick, it would be so much the worse 
for the hailstones. As for those extremely 
rare cases when balls of ice of great size fall 
from the clouds, they are so infrequent, that 
they may be considered out of the range of 
ordinary probability. Such a meteorological 
bombardment, depending, as the iceballs do 
for their formation, upon certain uncommon 
electrical states of the upper air, is one of 
the rarest of natural phenomena, and is 
always very limited in its range. The 
chances that an ice-storm, severe enough to 
break glass of the thickness proposed, would 
pass over any given locality once in a cen- 
tury, could not be greater than one in a 
million. During hot weather, large portions 

of a second a snow-flake would remain as a snow-flake 
on the garden-roof. Snow would melt almost as soon as 
it touched the glass, warmed from below ; and would pass 
off by the proper conductors as rain-water. 



104 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

of the garden-roof would be covered with 
canvas, which, as far as it extended, would 
be a protection against hail ; and, if it were 
thought advisable, the whole could be com- 
pletely shielded by covering it with a net- 
ting of small galvanized wire, with meshes 
an inch or so in diameter. 

Only one severe hail-storm has passed 
over the Sydenham Crystal Palace since its 
erection, and then no damage was done. By 
a most singular coincidence, it rattled down 
upon the glass roof with tremendous din 
while the grand Hailstone Chorus from 
Israel in Egypt was being performed, at a 
musical festival in honor of Handel, by an 
immense chorus of singers and a large 
orchestra. 

The question now arises, Who among the 
wealthy, the philanthropic, the men of great 
business-energy and of far-seeing minds, will 
aid in furnishing the required capital for an 



CONCLUSION. 105 

initial establishment like or resembling the 
one inadequately described in the preceding 
chapter ? There are a few men in the coun- 
try who could spare the amount needed for 
its realization, and scarcely miss it from their 
colossal fortunes. But the money would not 
be sunk nor thrown away. If there is any 
reliance whatever to be placed on calculations 
a priori, such an outlay of capital would 
be remunerative to its owners, as well as a 
great public benefit. What an opportunity to 
secure undying fame for some money-king who 
has the far-sightedness and the audacity to 
embark a portion of his accumulated millions 
in such an enterprise ! Is there not one such 
man in the country, endowed with the 
sagacity, the liberal-mindedness, and the 
nerve, to boldly take the initiative, and show 
the world what may be done by wealth when 
directed by a high purpose ? Or must it be 
left for the co-operation of men of smaller 



106 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

means? State or national aid is not to be 
expected, until public opinion, which gives 
law to the law-makers, is educated to see the 
importance and the feasibility of the enter- 
prise. If it were possible — and why is it 
not? — -to enlist the interest of a few men 
endowed with the persevering energy dis- 
played by some of the master-spirits who 
have carried to successful completion the 
great undertakings of the age, one such 
establishment might be made ready for dedi- 
cation on the approaching centennial of the 
nation's birth. 

It may be that the present generation of 
men will not see the creation of even one such 
oasis of bloom and warmth amid the cheer- 
less ice-deserts of our Northern winters. If, 
unfortunately, that should be the case, then 
we shall have missed a practical realization 
of the beautiful possibilities of existence in 
artificial climates on this weather-beaten 
section of the earth. 



APPENDIX. 

The almost unlimited potentiality of glass in 
the amelioration of the winter climates of high 
latitudes will yet be generally recognized. There 
are many ways by which its more extensive use 
would render life during the cold season greatly 
more endurable. How easily, for example, and 
at what comparatively small expense, could the 
bleak, storm-swept streets of Northern cities in 
winter be converted into delightful thoroughfares, 
as far as pedestrianism is concerned, by enclos- 
ing the sidewalks with large, thick glass panes, 
supported in a light, ornamental iron framework ! 
No alteration whatever in the buildings or the 
streets would be needed. Small iron columns, 
four or five feet apart, would rise from the curb- 
stones to nearly the height of the first story of 
the stores or dwellings. These columns would 
support a light, open-work entablature, from 

107 



108 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

which the glass roof would slope upwards to the 
side of the buildings. The spaces between the 
columns could be left square at the top, or made 
more ornamental by arches, either round or 
Gothic. At the bottom, for three feet or 
upwards in height from the curbstones, iron 
plates would be substituted for glass, to avoid 
accidental breakage from hubs of wheels or 
other causes. Openings would be left at the ends 
of blocks, where there were cross-streets, suffi- 
cient to allow free passage to the tide of foot- 
people. There would also be openings opposite 
each store or house front. The glass in the sides 
would be set in movable iron sashes, which 
would be taken out on the approach of warm 
weather, and replaced before winter. The glass 
in the roof would remain permanently throughout 
the year, and in summer would be covered with 
canvas awnings. 

The cost of thus enclosing the sidewalks of the 
principal streets in any large cit} r would not be 
great ; while the benefits that would follow, in the 



APPENDIX. 109 

promotion of health and comfort, would be incal- 
culable. The thousands of pedestrians that 
daily throng any great city thoroughfare would, 
if its sidewalks were thus enclosed, be almost 
entirely sheltered during the inclement season 
from storms, cold winds, and dust : they would 
also, to a great degree, be exempt from the 
annoyances of snow and mud and the dangers 
of icy flag-stones. Ladies and delicate invalids 
could do their shopping or visiting, or take their 
needful daily exercise, in all weathers. Nor 
would the benefits of these arcades end with the 
cold season. The awning-covered roofs would 
in summer be a protection from rain, from the 
hot noonday sun, and, to some extent, from dust. 
Only one small interest will suffer when this 
entirely feasible, and certainly desirable, plan 
shall be generally adopted ; and that is the 
umbrella-makers. But there will still be a 
demand for their useful commodities from the 
country-towns. 

It admits of no question that the business-street 



110 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 

or block, in any considerable town, which shall 
be the first to have glass arcades for the protec- 
tion of its sidewalks during the wintry season, 
will attract trade enough to its stores to pay the 
cost of such enclosures many times over. It is 
one of the anomalies of our civilization, that, 
while the greatest care is justly taken to prevent 
needless suffering among domestic animals, no 
protection whatever, save a few slight awnings 
in summer, is provided for the throngs of men, 
women, and children, that daily pass and repass 
along the sidewalks of every large town. They 
are exposed to the full peltings of the fierce win- 
try storms ; to frequent danger to limb, and even 
life, by the often icy flaggings ; and, in the hot 
season, to the scorching noonday sun and the 
frequent torrents of rain. 

In view of this neglect to provide the means 
conducive to human health and comfort in city 
streets, would it not be well to start a society for 
the prevention of cruelty to pedestrians, with 
some philanthropic Mr. Bergh for its president, 



APPENDIX. Ill 

the aim of which should be to agitate the matter 
in all reasonable ways until the proper remedies 
were provided? The city of the future will 
undoubtedly have better appliances for the com- 
fort and well-being of its inhabitants than do 
the cities of to-day. 

As only by often-repeated iteration do unfamil- 
iar ideas become familiar and accepted ones, it 
will not be out of pl^ce to restate, in conclusion, 
the main points advanced in the foregoing expo- 
sition. They are briefly summed up as follows : 
that while vicissitudes of climate cannot be 
controlled by human agency, yet it is possible to 
neutralize, to a great degree, their ill effects ; 
that the three principal agents, which in the near 
future will be used to make this possibility a 
reality, are glass, steam, and compressed air. 
By the intelligent use of these means, the cold of 
winter and the heat of summer ma} T each be neu- 
tralized, and artificial climates be created, agree- 
able and healthful in temperature, and, if desired, 
nearl}' invariable throughout the year. 



(Uvn. 



